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116th Commencement

2025 Class graduates from Davis & Elkins

ELKINS -- Davis & Elkins College's 116th Commencement ceremony took place Saturday with keynote speaker Nikki Bowman Mills addressing the more than 150 graduates.

Saturday morning, graduates were led in a procession from the Booth Library to the ceremony location at Harper-McNeeley Auditorium in the Myles Center for the Arts by members of the Elkins High School Band.

"To the Class of 2025, you have made us proud ever since you stepped foot onto the hallowed grounds of this campus, but you have never made us more proud than we are today," D&E President Chris A. Wood said at the commencement's start. "The faculty and the staff of this college join with your family and your friends in expressing our admiration and our pride in your accomplishment."

Wood asked graduates to reflect on their time and experience at D&E, and to never forget what they have learned about dedicating their lives "to service, to justice and to peace."

Mills, the ceremony's keynote speaker, is the founder, president, publisher and editor of New South Media (NSM), which she founded in 2008.

NSM is responsible for such magazines as WV Living, WV Weddings, Wonderful West Virginia and D&E's own Forward magazine. 

Mills graduated magna cum laude from West Virginia University, receiving a Bachelor of the Arts in Slavic Studies and International Studies, with a minor in Russian and History. She also holds a Master of Arts in Writing/Publishing from DePaul University.

During her address, Mills spoke to graduates about going out into the world with the power of being a "possibilitarian."

"In a world that's addicted to negativity and obsessed with limits, we need more 'possibilitarians,'" Mills said. "Being a possibilitarian means being a problem solver, it means being resourceful, it means seeing something that doesn't exist and figuring out how to build it. Possibilitarians believe in the power of 'what if?' Defeatists, on the other hand, say 'why bother?'"

Mills spoke of her childhood and how she began entrepreneuring at the age of six by selling tadpoles outside of a grocery store when other kids were selling lemonade. She also explained how being a possibilitarian helped her after her first business failure.

"You can think like an entrepreneur and be a possibilitarian," Mills said. "In fact, you should. Because the world doesn't need more people just going through the motions... the world desperately needs more (possibilitarians)."